May 12, 2025 LASD Board Special Meeting and Workshop Meeting

001What? You probably Jamarot. second and that it's really shove your Did you do operation again? [Music] I hope everyone Did you like us? It's getting Good evening. I'd like to welcome Milani Harris from Detroit one, Frank Lee Far from grade one, and Austin Rex from grade three. be our leaders for this evening. Please come up front if you're comfortable. stand for a brief moment of silence. All right. We have rollers present. Mr. Lose here. Mr. Dwayne Dela here. Mr. Dere, Mr. believes preser as per news on Saturday May 3 is secretary building special meeting on Monday May 12th 7 p.m. in the boardroom. Um, the purpose of the special meeting is for the board of directors to take action on a proposed final budget as well as some additional regular business items. Thank you. Regularly

002scheduled workshop meeting will immediately follow. Do you have any public comment on agenda items? Agenda items. Yes. All right. Good evening. I was looking at the budget and I see it's just over 50 million which is what it was last year and I thought in a billboard post there was something talked about 1.2 million extra family. Why are we still at 50 million if we're if we were at 50 million last year and there was an extra million? Is there another million in expenses? that Jason I mean there are additional expenses because the contracts have for example salary raises and healthcare is always increasing yeah I I don't know exactly what items would have would have accumulated up um but there are certain expenses salaries it was three or four% depending on it 12% Um

003and then obviously there are some minor capital. Okay. So, so off of that I just want to say once again I know there was some conversation about reducing taxes or rebating taxpayers. I think it's going to be a terrible idea if we spend another $1.2 2 million between last year and this year rebating us 50 bucks so that three years from now you just need 150 doesn't do us any favors. I hope you seriously consider not refunding 50 bucks to us or reducing taxes at this point and paying down our debt which is extensive. We all know this. You think you'll be actually interested in our forecast live scenarios tonight that actually show the impact that doing nothing same sex club what they do over the course of time. And then just one more. I

004I think it's uh disappointing to see that Rusty and Sean believes are not here once again. Thank you. Do we have other public comments? We do not. Okay. Thank you. So, Mr. L and I are going to kind of take separate parts of this, but um to the last point there, there's some new information in terms of budget updates and then some forecast live scenarios. and some information on debt structure and options that we were asked to look into. So I'll start over first with the home crime update. Thank you, Mr. So wanted to give an update. So the state has released the homestead property tax allocation fund to the gener funds distributed to districts across the state. So we can distribute uh $2,65,31 for 2526. So that's roughly a $265,000 increase over the prior

005year. Those funds get distributed amongst the eligible homesteads and farmsteads. So what you'll see is that that number that was confirmed by the county actually decreased over the prior year as to the number of eligible homestead and farmsteads. So that said, when we look to distribute them, um, we go through a fairly complex calculation because you cannot gain money off of the homestead farmstead exclusion. So if your property tax bill is less than the rebate amount, you just get your property tax bill rebated. Um, the remaining funds go back to the pot and redistributed to the other eligible sets. Um so at this point based upon the preliminary data available um the homestead is increasing for um 25 to 26 to $486.94 which is increase over the 417 from the prior year. So pretty much

006um it's a little under $70 can be realized for eligible owners um that have applied for this um in this year and um in light of no tax increase on the table at this point um there will be a further reduction to the tax bills for those properties. So to be clear is nothing really for the district. This is a windfall for the for the coers. We make the warnings for every dollar that is um rebated back receive that from the state gaming funds and we reduce our property tax collection accordingly. So it's a net zero impact to the district. Yeah, it's a sort of baked in tax rebate for those for those qualified scenarios and some simulations. forecast buys and software where we put we load our current budget or current revenue projections, historical

007projection or historical numbers into the software and be able to manipulate each variable and see what the anticipated outcome would be one year one year to the five years down. It's a forecasting tool that literally want to make that ter right because every scenario that you run you change one small variable it will have an impact whether that's on the revenue side or the expensive side. So what we we did we started with our basic proposed budget uh that is in front of us running tonight. Um and then we changed a couple of variables in each scenario. You could run countless scenarios and become information overload. So what we did is we decided to run sort of five um five scenarios that we then compare against each other and you can see the what what

008the impact is forecasted to be on the overall financial state of the district up to and including the remaining fund balance at the end of that projected fiscal year. Again all forecasts not number set in stone. So if we look at the first scenario, I want to be very clear here. Um this is a status quo budget rate. So this is essentially very similar to the budget that is in front of us tonight. Very very similar. Um in fact, the only thing that might be slightly different is the 4% increase in all other costs. Um that's sort of around an average when you look at everything, you know, paper costs, in cartridge, stuff like that. Um so it it includes a modest increase in state funding, which we projected. Um we we think we are

009likely to get more than what we're projecting in state funding, but we can't bank on that until the state budget is passed, which I would not anticipate until September. um they were lucky. They were lucky September. Um it includes a 3% increase in human resource costs, 4% increase in all other costs, a 10% increase in healthcare costs. With Mr. L just said, that's about what we're being bid for, and it is paying our debt service as it is currently scheduled. So later on we're going to talk about options we have for debt service. But these scenarios all play out in terms of us paying our debt service according to the calendar that was presented at the last meeting which we call that calendar. So when when you look at this you actually see a surplus

010deficit. Um, and some of the numbers are a little different, but um, so when you say year 2026, are we talking about fiscal year or are you talking about school year 26? 25 26. 256. Um, and you'll see how in 2627 that becomes a deficit. Um, and you start dipping into your fund balance if you keep extrapolating those costs. And one thing I will say, human resources. Um, retirement's always come into play. You end up spending a little bit less than what you project for one year to the next because you don't know at this point in time. One year, two years, three years down the road. Suppose he's going to retire to scale. There could be savings there. And you have five or six people, they're going to be significant savings there. Uh but

011you'll see that if if we remain status quo the forecast is telling us um that with a modest increase in city funding uh by 2930 we have actually our fund balance saying status quo the does that play out exactly the forecast we know that um but you can see how the different variables play out. Any questions about the first scenario here? Do you have the next one? This is the decreasing the property taxes by 1 mil. Again, a modest increase in state funding, 3% increase in human resource costs, 4% increase in all costs, just same as the last slide, 10% increase in healthare costs and extension, etc. So the only thing we changed in this scenario from the first scenario um is decreasing the property tax uh millillage rate by one and you see that

012it leads us to the deficit immediately. Um and you see what happens there in terms of remaining fund balance. Should we continue down that same track without making any sort of structural changes to our expenditures? Any questions about the one decrease? Okay, the next scenario is we said okay let's look at what would happen if you decreased by half a mill and you see similar pattern not not as not as fast and not as high a deficit right away but by increasing half you end up working it does end up casting a deficit you know 20 uh 25 26 school year and that deficit It continues to compound as costs go up and you see that it would deplete the remaining fund balance by year 2030 here as well. We have a scenario four. This

013is status village. So staying the same same rate. Uh we thought this one was worthwhile given the given the conversation around what happens to the federal department of education and if that funding were to uh significantly alter which it depends on who you listen to. Um whether that gets funneled through another source or whether it begins to go away at least sort of looking at well what is our dependence on federal funding. I think that's it's at least important, you know, have that context. Um so this is status quo village. It is a again that modest increase about 2% here from here which is sort of where it would have been. Uh it is a it includes a 50% decrease in federal funding beginning the 26 27 school year and we do not anticipate federal

014funding being affected for the 25 26 school year next year. Most most people are talking about if there's going to be an impact, we're going to start seeing it not next budget cycle, but budget cycle after that. You actually see that status quo mill rate, you end up with a deficit beginning next year because we while we don't receive a ton of money from federal funding, it is enough that makes for approximately seven teaching seven full-time teaching positions here. seven to nine depending on where they are with salary structure. So, if you're going to attack a structural a structural reoccurring cost in the budget, um really the only two places that you get, you know, it's you can only cut supplies to a point because students need books, pencils, and calculators, right? Um really the

015areas where you can actually make significant changes is through personnel and experts. Those are the two things that that you have at times some control over. um in terms of expenditure. So you have control over supplies, but if you scale that back in one year, you might see three to $500,000 worth of savings, but you're never going to see that again because now it's just going to dump up keep that baseline year after year. It's just going to continue to actually compound and um until you actually starting down and taking those things away. So the fifth scenario, this is sort of like um hopeful for the state. This is this is our hope from the state if you will. Uh you'll see you'll see status quo millillage. You will see maximum state funding not for

0162526 but for 2627. When we say maximum state funding, we're talking about the Sarah funding formula. the amount that we received as a district last year, that amount added to it and then modest in in successive years. Um, you'll also see a 3% increase in human resource costs, 4% in other costs, etc., etc. The same variables as most of the other slides. One component that I think is important to point out here uh in terms of that state funding that that state funding is at least last year was based on a highly complex formula that actually was trying to reward districts who whose local tax base was carrying a hefty bur. So, one of the reasons why we got a pretty good amount was because our tax what they said essentially is that at some

017point in time you raise taxes up to a point that can be expected to be good. um if you if that formula is used again, there have been some caution and there are actually some examples out there in school districts where if you are not raising taxes and you're moving down the road, that would actually have an impact on the formula to say, well, you're not getting as much from us because you're no longer keeping up the same amount of burden as you have in the ask. So I can tell you two examples. I'm not going to use the district's names. Two affin affinity. One had a socioeconomically disadvantaged rate of about 30%, the other one about 48%. Um but then they also had some really high as well. So the 30% school district has

018historically raised the act index almost every year. They got a significant boost much more proportionately than we did uh in the fair funding formula because what they said is their local tax burden has been very very heavy and so they got more money. another district as I said about right around 45 48% socioeconomically disadvantaged uh rece they have not gotten to the act one index in the past four years they went halfway to it twice during that time span they are receiving no additional funding from the state because what they're saying is you're not carrying your fair share of local entity um so I I think that is a very important piece of information the board and the public to understand that that fair funding the way it was done at least last year. It

019may not it's the state so it may not be done the same way this year or following years. We don't know because there's it's not it's not legislative. It's part of the budget. It's not part of the whole farmless funding which is guaranteed to stay at least the same. Um it is that that's what I was going to ask you about. Will we at least receive what we received last? We do not full harmless. Yes. New adequacy funding is not part of harmless. It's funneled through the right get a reduction. We could get a reduction in the right block. But isn't that where the they put the adequacy funding? Yes, but they didn't put it in the whole farm basic funding for Okay. Yes. So they could recalculate a different way. They could recalculate it

020a different way, but I think it's important for everybody to know that if they don't and they revert back for the next what was supposed to be six years, last year was this this current year was year one of six and they were supposed to have seven years to fix it. Correct. And if if the local entity stops carrying their work, they may receive less from the state, which could actually compound the problem. Um, again, we're very modest in our forecast here in terms of what we're getting from the state because it's always a it's always a wild. They might they might complete they might come up with a completely different way of calculating that and awarding that and distributing it. You know how it's going to go. It's going to be two sides of

021the legislature within each side of the legislative body. They're going to have arguments and debates and people are going to add things in. People are going to dig things out till they get to a compromised solution. Um I don't think most districts at this point in time are anticipating getting exactly what they got last year. I can't speak for every district in the state, but the people who I spoke to do not get unless they got antic. So, wanted to get this information. I was asked by the board. Again, these are projection numbers. Um, I would say it's very similar to like PPE's enrollment projections. what you're looking at given the variables that we plugged in are probably close to to the worst case scenarios. They they usually come in better than this, but it

022does show you trends with whatever variable you adjust along. I have a question. I thought our fund balance was around 15 million. That was at the start of the year. respect that some of the ridicul balance figure for what we have right now until this year's budget gets audited next year. You always you get the accurate numbers between 16 and 18 months after the budget was passed. That's the problem. Yeah. And you can't have it any other way. This year has to be finished. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. L to talk about options for debt service. Thank you. So looking at options based upon debt service. Um I reached out to PSM I understand was a part of the most recent um bond issuance for the district. So um I

023reach out to Mr. Willard and come up with two options. Um the district wanted to pay off the debt. He identified that that would be um only option he is paying down a 20 15 debt for the district. Um the one piece that he he noted to me that to note is that the current interest rate environment that the district uh is in um is one in which is twofold. one, your fund balance is what is generating interest income on the general fund as a revenue. So any change to that needs to be considered as part of your local revenues for um budgeting purposes because without that it would be any impact to those interest rates. The other piece is um the fact that the current interest rate environment I'm going to show the two

024options in the subsequent slides that I would be paying off debt that has interest rates of about 2.6 to 3.7%. And our current liquid rate which is the lowest interest rate because the funds are available in time is um 3.12%. So essentially um it is advantageous because of the revenue impact for the district to consider um the maintenance of those funds and also the fact that essentially any funds you have you're earning what you're paying as interest on these. Um the other piece and I'll stress later is before I get to the next point is that part of your state revenues is the reimbursement for debt that is received from um the state. And so if you pay off debt, you will lose that reimbursement as part of each budget. You will receive a reimburse.

025We call it a lump sum, but you will lose that each individual budget year. The final point is that any change in your debt structure, any significant change in fund balance does get reported to hold. This what's called Emma, which is a municipal market clearing house that is um reported for your financial reports, your budgets. pay issuance goes through that process. Um and that could trigger a rating change and complete the transaction for the district. Um the final you know decision that would be correct. Correct. Because again you also have financial forecast that shows that status quo that's negative. So they potentially could consider that in their outlook for the district as a whole which could impact the interest rates you could get on we could go back. So the two uh debt service um

026options if we were to pay off two million of debt um versus three million of debt um they um amounts with the 2 million um reduce 2.9 million of debt service um and we would save about $9001,000 in interest savings after that. If we were to pay $3 million of debt we would see um a debt service reduction of 4.2 2 million 1.2 million in interest um savings. But again, we need to consider those savings against what we could earn on the funds um you know for for the district. Um also so that would drop down the actual savings because we would lose interest revenue. So the savings won't be these numbers that are here because we lost revenue. These will be the savings of bond. Well, yeah, but but because you're losing revenue, and

027that's what I can't figure out. If we were, let's say we paid off 3 million. Okay. Um, what would be the interest revenue reduced? You know, what would be that reduction that we wouldn't be getting by keeping it in the bank that interest rates are? I get that. likely drop it like if it stayed if it stayed the same as what it is now 3.12%. If we took $3 million out of the fund balance and paid that off, what would our revenue reduction be? because I was going back through back past budgets over the weekend and to see that we only I think at at one point we only received $27,000 in interest but that was when the fund balance was only like $800,000. So So if you looked at conservative CD took 3 million

028and put it in three and a half% that means $105,000. Okay. So that's roughly what your what your trade-off is that you'd be having to remove for next year from the So out of that one 1,224,878 you would the savings would be reduced by $100,000 because you would have lost that interest as rent each year that you would maintain the fund balance, right? any interest rates be at that right you wanted to do you could do or would approve a multiple year CD that would give you some security in the marketplace on that interest right and that was my concern is because it's not just oh look at all the interest we're saving is most people don't look at let's look at the interest we're losing there's there's a that's where other other governments have

029gotten in trouble. I wor I wor I worked with an accountant once who certified public account who said you know that isn't great to have but cash is king because you can maybe that cash work for you and potentially offset even more so you can earn more than what you would eventually save if you put that money into so it should be done with caution well I think it isn't it mandated by law it has to be done with caution pretty much well cautious in terms of the decision to do something like the other piece is there would be costs to performing the actual transaction. Well, just like there isn't anything at a bond, there's a cost of that. So that has to come off of savings. The other piece is is that again until

030you go to market for pricing you really won't know what these savings are going to be testive purposes based on the trends that are best correct but this isn't all of our debt something like no this is only 2015 correct exactly that's where I'm going at here like I think we probably want to continue this conversation because um you know when I wanted to talk about the debt I also wanted to see presented like all of the debt that we have in each one of the vehicles that exists within just so that everybody can see you ask it shows all the debt and it shows it also shows what the state pays us back each year and what local effort is yeah ends up being you still have to pay before the state reimburses and

031as we all know they are not necessarily like Johnny on the spot reimbursement I understand I'm just saying that like like publicly all of us together I wanted to kind of like just see the big big picture like I understand like this is an option and obviously we don't have a fund balance of $40 million to pay off all our debt but it be kind of a nice ational to see like all the debt that we have and all the different sorts of vehicles that exist within and you know that's sort of all so yeah so um we did look at all this and I we can get that for next time so it's prepared but just so we understand so bonds can only be called at certain periods of time um part of it

032also too is that federal legislation back and I think around 2018 um made it that you cannot do what's called advanced false. So based on the fact that we just did that 2023 issue that has no options for calls show we don't have correct I'm happy to show it to you but when I went to PFM and I said because again I'm not an expert in in the bond and I talked with it Zach understood your instruction and said if this was something of it desire to do we all should be aware of the loss on the interest rate piece the loss in the reimbursement, but this is the only place that they hit based upon the call. That's why I'm asking the question because it doesn't realize that the rest of the debt is

033pretty much you look at the next slide. So in the situation of paying 2 million, you really are paying off what starts in um November 2035. is essentially even 10 years out they're paying on um because you can't touch portions of this series that are not able to be called at this point in time. So I wanted to let you know that's really what you would be paying down if you were to to pay down based upon the call structure. Right. Um if you wanted to go further again it still starts at on a three million slide. it still starts at the November of um 15 time uh 2023 timeline, 2033 timeline and just continues on even later um within that that that realm based upon it um you know being being paid down. The

034other issue to remember is is that in a interest rate market, short-term interest rates on bonds are ordinarily the lowest interest rates. So, you have to go out because at the time that this was issued in 2025, you're looking at somebody who committed 20 years out. If you're going to look to eliminate interest burden, you look to that far end, not the more recent, which would have reflected that market in 2015, which would not have been the current interest rate market we're in. And so those are much lower. They make you have, you know, potentially if you were able to a negative of losing money because if you're going to pay off something that's at 2% and you can earn point five year, then you're giving up the the value of that that funds in

035the bank earning interest against paying down the that interest rate. Yeah. I think to continue the conversation go's point. I think what we would want to see in the future is an estimate of what we think that we would get in because right now it's not being sold to me that it's just a good idea that we expect that. Well, there's a lot of factors to consider and some of them are like what we're going to get from the state is unknown. It's just a guess. Exactly. It's all including what interest rate is going on or balance. Exactly. But that's you always want to look at the worst case scenario because you can always be pleasantly surprised. [Music] What was the point if the board wanted you to take a portion of the fund balance

036and go out for competitive proposals for one one and a half twoyear CDs and see what competition would bring and what that looks like. Um you know for those are guaranteed interest rates correct guaranteed that would be that we do that because we don't see the account I've never seen it we don't see the funds now do we have like a month with that now I know okay because it might be might an idea to take one or two million and put that in say a twoyear and see what those interest rates look like and then we could forecast what the interest earnings in revenue would be. I think we want to see some options what we can do because at least the very next year we're going to be touching the loan which is

037what's concerning about like if we refunded one mill to the taxpayers which would be nice. Um but that would come up to $37 for me and I could only go one because I know what my assessment is. Um, but my concern at the time was that would be approximately $350,000 that wouldn't be coming in. And what would the interest lost on that be? You know what I mean? So, because it's far more complicated than what most people think. And that is where in the past it has gotten lost in I remember from attending the meetings they were paying down the general term so that they raise taxes. But you can't tell me they didn't know. All they had to do was assign it to make it under the 8%. because I am that it's totally

038any I think it's something that needs to be continue to be discussed and so people are ready to move on the next so we were asked about mandatory and non-mandatory spending again I'll just reiterate this is sort of a complex thing to wrap one head around um so we get started with um put together some information that is certainly discretionary technology inventory and then I'm gonna I'll add something that is not necessarily in the chart but it's certainly if you're really talking about you know what do we have to spend and what do we not have to spend that we do spend that becomes kind of really you land some really gray area so we go to the next slide you'll actually see you didn't look presentation early version. Um what I will tell you

039also discuss that later because that's not going to change any decisions we're making. It's you know in terms of what what I calculated there were some curriculum technology things uh transportation student activities athletics things of that nature and expenditures tied to that I think it was around three and a half million three million well we're spending approximately on and this is approximate because I haven't run the numbers on extracurriculars we're spending somewhere around a million. And if you pick figure a million7 for transportation, there's 2.7 million right there. So 3 million is probably correct. Three and three and a half is where I believe that. Um and then obviously the other things are are personnel positions where uh they're very tied to what are our offerings for students. Um, you know, we have, you know,

040personnel that are not mandatory personnel to have. Um, just some examples off the top of my head, we have two school psychologists. We do not have that. Two school psychologists. We have workers. We have social workers. We have that's excluded from because that really comes down to significant deep conversations about what programs Do we consider bold harmless? I mean there are school districts who have done things like cut music, cut arts um in order to say I'm please understand everybody out there public I am not recommending that we do such things. I'm simply saying they are options. Well if it came to the state taking over the district that would be the only time we would do those up. The only reason I'm bringing this up is just to help people understand that, you know,

041there is discretionary spending that the board does to enrich the lives of the children. Absolutely. That was just a point of conversation. Yeah. I would say it's somewhere in the neighborhood. Okay. Interesting. as we transition. Um, we're talking about capital reserve. Um this is something that has you know in terms of when we got received our audit from last last year and talk about you know what do we have what do we have coming down the road and facilities planning um in terms of maintenance of those facilities. We talked about bringing in somebody with expertise to be able to give us an idea of what it's going to cost us year over year uh to keep our facilities running as such. Um, these are sort of built-in maintenance costs that if we want to preserve

042the longevity of our facilities, which I think it is in our best interest to do, um, that you do have to you can't defer those maintenance costs because that that winds you up in a spot if you defer maintenance costs too long. Build a new center, you have significant challenges. self given and I think this is all tying together and I think it's important um in the reserve I'd like some conversation around this um this doesn't need to be figured out today pass yeah this is not tied to the budget I think it's tied to the budget in a big picture way but not in the budget that you're voting on yeah I just want a little more critical thing that we have to figure out today correct um but what we would like to

043do is is recommended that the board consider in in the next couple of months uh allocating the surplus from the 2324 budget cycle to a capital reserve fund. Currently, I think we have about $250,000 in the capital reserve fund. Um that will be expended if we do two things on our list that kind of have to be done in all honesty. generator at the high school. We have an insurance plan for that that pays a portion of that, but it's still going to cost us about 100 grand. Um so the idea that's a safety feature. Yes. Yeah. We're not talking about like not doing it. Yeah. Yeah. So um the 2.8 it amounts to about 2.8 million approximately from the surplus from the 23 24 cycle. Um, essentially what we would like to do is

044use that use that money as seed money. Uh, and we're plan to implement responsible capital with improvement projects while continuing to improve interest on the funds that are unspent. Kind of saying we are going to take facilities maintenance incredibly serious so that we can increase the longevity of the life of what we have. Um, so that we're not in a position where we've got to look to go out and borrow money to build to put a roof on building or we're not in a position where we want to borrow money to do a traffic plan. Um, or whatever comes down the road because, you know, we are a complex organization with a lot of facilities and these things happen. And so the idea there is that kind of start investing and then if you put

045that money there it has to be used for capital reserve projects that are then in the future approved by unless the money gets moved out of the capital but the money can happen but that would also take an official board action to move the money. Well, one would think that when one commits $10 million in a committed fund, they can take official action, but apparently not. Well, that mean the auditor general is no longer non school district. Correct. So, with that 2.8 million as as we go down this conversation, you'll go to the next slide. Uh just laying out some ideas here for the 2526 budget cycle. We already desperate 80 new police vehicle. If we want to have a police vehicle, we need a new police. We just had that fixed. What's that? We

046just got it fixed. No, that was a few years ago. Yesterday, but we might. Is it fixable and we can send it to CCTI like we did last time or not? I reinstate I I would think that you're talking about singing fund at this point in time. Gotcha. Okay. So more Okay. Um municip we we will we will look at our options. Um and you know 50,000 might be high. That's a brand that's brand new. It would not be brand new. A used car. Put some stickers on it. Right. Uh $800,000. This makes up for it because I think there's probably been an overlap for the traffic signal. Um but but kind of setting that aside. Uh the intercom system, we have a quote right now sitting at $110,000. That I believe is a system

047original to the building. It is failing pretty drastically. And that's a safety issue. That is a safety issue and a communications issue without a doubt. Um and then 350,000 for the capital projects but not limited to um high school FCS room. What's FCS? Family consumer science formerly known as home. Yes. Which which is how I will always remember uh the middle schools room and those are really venting things. So again, yes, they are safety concerns because we have smoke alarms that go off when kids make something because the venting system is not out of the room. Um, I mentioned our raceable generator. We know we have the elementary onboarding. Won't know exactly what that's going to cost until we had trader slip that out. Um, high school valves in the boiler room low. Uh, exterior

048steps of the high school outside of the auditorium are in pretty bad shape. Uh there are some high school areas around the high school where sidewalks would be very beneficial. That was my next question because years ago we talked about raising the sidewalks because we certain areas I think it was along the street but I'm not positive. Um because we had an insurance claim because somebody fell on the sidewalk. Yeah. That's over. Okay. This is not tied to that. Um, this is tied to entry into the tech area, tech area school. Yeah, I think you have that notes on. Um, now I'm going to ask again, isn't there an issue with the middle school uh generator? Yes. The issue there though is that it has to be Oh my gosh. Uh, it has to be

049connected. It has to be slightly moved and connected in some way. I don't know the specifics of this. It is not necessarily a it's not a replacement generator. Okay. Because I I don't know if anything is ever done to that because I remember a few years back it we were told that basically they're not going to be able to fix it anymore. I don't know when it was purchased. I don't know that anybody knows when it was purchased because I only have minutes that go back to 2011. So somebody would have to come in and read in the book all the minutes to find out when that was done. We can certainly get more information, but I think it ties into the same concept regardless. Oh, absolutely. Is that you know planning for some of

050these costs is really important. Absolutely. Jason, what are we doing for the um home at work? Uh so the middle school the uh home room is is really a vent it's really a ventilation effort and um kind of configuration of the room so that it makes sense so that it is safe so we maximize the space we have in terms of workstations. I don't think we actually have a any quoted cost on that yet at the high school though. I know that that's also primarily a ventilation concern. Um and then also some research been duration to to efficiently use the space which is tied to the idea of ventilation more useful. We're not really buying the equipment for the students. the the capital project would not be equipment for students unless it would be potentially

051like stoves and stuff that be in there. Um and I think there is some of that at the high school. I don't believe there's much of that. So my my my what I would suggest there is if it's things like stoves and things like that that we reach out to appliance areas and would they want to sponsor one and we'll put up a sign up in the wall that says this piece of equipment whatever it is sponsored by you know what I mean. Absolutely. So in the interest of time people are okay with it all in a budget motion so we can well I think we need to talk about budget first um presentation I thought yeah but this isn't the actual proposed budget that's that's what we need to bring forward well that's Next

052question specifically on the budget that that's the next item. Correct. It's not in my version. Okay. Um I didn't say anything other than Jason ago when we first arrived here. So, um, can I read the motion to go ahead and make that motion to Well, we need to know what the amendment is. I correct it. Okay, let's make the motion the regular motion and then I'll propose the amendment. How does that Okay. Do I hear a motion to approve the 25 to 26 proposed final budget as presented in PBE 2028 format? But it's not presented that way. This is not PB 2028 format. That's not all detail. Well, on the last page of the one that I have at home, the header said at the top of the page, it say 2017, 2018, 2019, 20.

053Correct. There it is. on page 12 which I understand that's just the headers weren't changed but it's the first thing that jumped out the first thing that jumped out of car so was in 2024 when the debt service went up by I hear a motion and then we can discuss how can we make that motion when it's not presented that way well then you can say that it's not present then the discussion falls under the motion Okay. Second. Okay. Great. Um, and now thanks for comment that it's not in the PD 2028. And one of the questions I was going to ask is if we go through this, are we going to see the next budget presented the way we're norm we're used to normally seeing it presented? So I could add some narrative. So

054to generate the scenario for use forecast as a report. Um well I understand this is a forecast five report but it's not the the formal form that the PBE uses. So the level of detail on that minus the headers being off on every other page from them. um is the function object which is how it will be submitted for the 2020 uh for the expenditures. Um the in light of looking at the scenarios tonight I didn't want to come forward with the money sustaining it. Um, however, my understanding is that with the approval to move forward with a version of the budget like this, we will have the 2028 to be able to put on display, which is what the requirement is. 2028 to be on display 20 days prior to approval of final budget.

055Right. I'm just saying we were used to seeing the proposed final budget in that format. It made it exceedingly difficult for me, you know, to go through this because it's not what I'm used to looking at. And then it actually doesn't say, "Well, then we need to amend that, too." Correct. So, do I hear a motion to amend the previous motion to read to approve the 2526 proposed final budget as presented and authorize the inspection of the general fund budget from the CFRS application which will be in PD 2020 format and this proposed uh version must be approved approved and posted for 20 days prior to final budget approval. Um, you want to look at it? No, I I understand what you're saying. What I want to know is if we approve that, we vote

056yes on that. Do I have a motion for this? Second, if we go with that, when it goes up on the website, will it be in the actual PBE format? Correct. That's what this says here. Okay, that's what I want to make sure of because it says clearly here it's presented in one way, but then once it's for inspection, it will be in the correction. Okay. And I want to make sure it's not. I just want to make sure it goes up because I'm too old to change forats and I think anybody else not Dr. thousands looking at it um in in the public but that's how they're used to seeing it too and that's the correct way to do it. So, since this is technically a new motion, I'm going to ask that the

057public has any comment on this amended motion. I just Great. Hearing none. Um, we're voting on the motion, not actually the budget. And does the board want to discuss? No, it's on the amendment. Okay. On the amendment. Yes. Okay. All those in favor? I I opposed abstensions. Okay. So now we have our amended budget motion and now we will discuss the actual budget and my understanding is that the proposed budget uh keeps the taxes level. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. So discussion Well, we didn't have a motion. We did. Yes, we had a motion and we amended it. So, okay. I just want to make sure it's it's approved. All right. So, now we can discuss. Yes. All right. I have a question under revenue from local sources for district activities. My question is

058in 2024 it's 64,000 this 427 and then it goes down to 61,000 then it goes down to 58,550. Why is there in numbers? What what's the idea behind that with the district activities? What does it say? That's what you're saying. And why do we think it's going down? So those are purely um small amounts collected throughout January and so there's no real way to forecast them. So I align them to where they were for the prior year for 23 24 and what they received to be 24. I just want to clarify they're not student activity funds as a whole separate. No, I wasn't thinking that one. Yeah, they're just there's no way to to necessarily you're just being very conservative with your numbers based on the trend where they were 24. My my question on

059that is are you talking about your cities for football for boy? Okay. I wanted to clarify that. All right. Um I have a lot of questions. So because I went through this whole thing. Yes. I spent two hours trying to answer your questions. I couldn't. [Music] first wish 1800. Okay. So, um 1,800 pre kindergarten. Okay. So, [Music] um Oh my god, I have highlighted. So, um I was just curious um the salaries. So you have for 1,800 for salaries for the pre kindergarten um 118 174 and 88. Why is it such a decrease in 26? So the number that's budgeted align to our grants that we receive and how we those grants. Okay. So in 2026 we're going to get a lot less grants. Um so the the the number the um the 347 137

060um is not aligned to what we told our as an estimated amount of current budget for this year. I can find out for you where 347 are we gonna have less people working in that because that's what it looks like. Like maybe there's only going to be one person instead of two. You know what I mean? Because that's the salaries. It drops from 174,000 down to 889%. I mean drop down to that. So we can allocate this there's no to my understanding reduction. We can't allocate people to the prepaid grant based upon what the grand work with the curriculum to allocate um salaries for two individuals um specifically which is what's reported there to the grant as well as um benefits for those individuals. Okay. All right. We have that. My next one is for

061the supplies. Are we buying new computers or something that goes from 12,916 up to 41,938 and then 41,438? Yeah, there is an intended um rush for two years. Okay. All right. Like I said, all right. So now I have on 2,000 supplies under um support services. Okay. All right. So it's two pages. It's page six. Oh here. Gota. Yeah. So, um I guess my next question was um are you're going to be since it is 17,731 for 2024 and 30,400 um in 2025 and 2026. Is that going to be the same thing? You're planning on buying computers or something for two years? That's my bas. All right. So, my next question is 2200. Oh. It's already high. Oh, no. Professional technical services. You probably touched it with your finger. Um, okay. So, professional services and

062technical services. Um, the numbers are 51,249 in 2024. Then it dropped down to 20,000 and then it shoot up to 94,128. I'm a little confused why. So, um, this 2200 in particular supports the office of the assistant superintendent instruction. And we did some reallocations this year between what would be funded from that office versus what would be at the building level. Um and so um that's related to um anticipated um costs for um professional services for buildings for um district one. So it's in here in district. Oh okay. I think that's the University of Delaware. Yeah. So, so in the past the reason for the uptick there is there has been title two funding that has been used in the past for the same category. So you would have seen that category lower, right? And

063you would have seen um salaries and benefits higher because what we're doing is instead of allocating that that title funding to paying for trainings and professional development sessions, we're we're going to make it much cleaner for auditing and monitoring purposes. We talked about this a little bit at one meetings. Yeah. We're going to use that to pay salaries and benefits rather than allocating money out of the title two grant to professional development. We still want to invest in professional development. So it it's really just how it falls. It's the same like if you look at the actual amounts, it's very very similar from one year to the next. It's just how you're paying for it. So before more of the salaries and benefits would have come out of the out of the other funds out

064of the general fund were in those areas and uh less money would have come out for professional development. Hence the $20,000 there. So we're switching where that we're pulling that 70 if you will. Okay. My next question um is on supplies in the same category. It was 31,930 high and then it jumps all the way up to 652,000 and it falls back down to 158,329. So why is there a jump in? So that's that's the budget for this year and that's one of the pieces that Mr. most I worked with was reallocating because there was a lot of funds within that budget that building individuals and other departments came to requesting to access those funds. So we've releveled that to have based on how the budgets were developed for those those if you needed it

065in your budget it was simply your budget if you recall it is here for example there was a request for a transfer for some furniture for the library we're trying to budget it back to where it so it doesn't have to be transferred correct into that actual budget so we understand as we're developing the budget what the needs are and what go rather being in just put a lum somewhere and they can just transfer it out. Correct. Which makes it very correct because not clean. If you if you actually look count the three years prior actuals. So you've never spent $6502,800 there, right? So we're trying to rely on budgets to actual expenditures and needs where they're going to be spent rather than have a number like All right. The next question is 600 and

066maintenance grant. It's for properties. What exactly um are we talking about property? properties considered anything um related to equipment improvement capitalizers um a generator repair not replacing necessarily the best in that property and that would that be like when we replace the the dump body of the dump truck. Absolutely. Okay. I was like I said I was curious numbers and they were up and down and down. Okay, the next question. Sorry, I wasn't sure if I had these questions other people have the same questions. I mean, I know that, you know, Jason is told that way he's here and he's been working with staff to have them sort of personalize their own budgets and really dig in and kind of, you know, make it make it their own thing. And so there is a reset

067happening and especially like in the supplies and the curriculum and stuff like that you're seeing those things are are changing because instead of people just taking like a generic number and saying oh that's my basket money instead now they're thinking more carefully like oh next year I mean x y and z is more precise for student activities. So, I'm looking at the numbers here and um the actual numbers. So, it's 1,400 um 1,00 1 million sorry 140,577 in 2024 and then for 2025 it was1,11.97 and then it drops to17 $17,000 sorry $7. Anyway, so my question here was since these are our student activities, is there room here for new activities? Was that accounted for? Like if you guys knew the like club, is that already accounted for there or where's that money coming from?

068So these are based the student activities and athletics. They're all based upon what those have been um identified for and your requests would be received from the administration at this point in time. So something that's not already in the list isn't in this right correct or a budget transfer if it's not fixed for you get to um a budget um amount as a whole and we do have small budgetary reserve as a part of now also on this are we seeing the drop Because if I remember correctly, the water sore and electric for the fieldhouse is now going to be paid out of the building and grounds. So that drops down the amount that's going into here because it's no longer an expense for that. That's my understand. Yeah. All right. I have one question.

069Everything else makes sense. Question. Okay, I have a question. And I understand budget you're very conservative on revenue, somewhat liberal on expenditures. You're trying to narrow down special, but the 2324 budget showed a surplus of 2.8 million, which we're looking at putting into a specific buildings or I 100% behind that. We need to maintain our facilities. However, our fund balance dropped by 3 million. How is that possible? Please explain that to me. Can I take a stab at it? Please, please, go. We assigned funds for buying curriculum and technology and stuff like that and we spent that. Now, you have to remember that 2.8 8 million would have been from the end of last year, not the year we're in, right? So, we have spent some of those funds, which is why instead of being

07015 million, they're estimating 10 million starting this new budget because we spent $5 million more than we took in. It might just still Is it still sitting in assigned pharmacy? Yes, it is also in the bill. You passed your budget this year with revenues less than expenditures and so Right. And we were going to use almost 4 million of that. Correct. So it's okay. I wasn't aware of it. I wasn't part of last year's budget. So some things just the budgets are on the website under the business office. So you can go back and look at previous budgets. And and you can see we were running at a 3.67 million deficit I think which it's not going to come in as that which is why that money is there. Yes. So the this current year's

071budget was passed prior to surprise though what state allocation was going to be right. They came in much more generous than what was originally passed. So, what's showing up on the budget is as inaccurate as whatever amount was added on by the state. Does that make sense? So, it's a better case scenario. It's not worse case, which is what we as correct. No, no, no. I I do not disagree with with doing the budget the way you're doing it. I I think it makes sense. Be conservative on your revenue. right now. So, it's it's the last recorded amount from from the audit. Um, well, because we haven't received yet that we're going to receive. I'm just asking right now. Well, the bank balance won't bring to your funds because your your meal a year. So

072far revenue is coming in that fund balance accounts for bills and salaries at the end of the year for that. So that is where it's very hard to pinpoint each year through the year because there certain accounting transactions we do that are really transaction. They're not not cash based in how we coordinate that that number. Sure. Okay. And the biggest problem is in the revenue report if you look it'll list all grants. Okay. And that includes state funding and federal funding. Um but when you look you'll see we've only received certain amount of that money. So that's what would be in. So, what I'll remind you, Dwayne, is that we're approving a budget right now for review and this is not the final budget. Correct. And I'm I'm 100% in favor of advancing a budget

073that does not increase taxes on our shareholders. And I see no absolutely no reason to do that this year. there's no reason we should raise taxes because my guess is going to be and I haven't run the numbers that if we did not assign um funds to different areas we'd be probably well over that 8% that the state has other questions on the budget I think I like looking at this budget I like the way it looks um I still want to make sure that our goal is to be more aggressive on finding grants, grants that we can actually get, maybe be aggressive on the competitive grants. Um because, you know, who knows? We can end up with more money by spending those grants instead of spending the taxpayers money. Although that is also the

074taxpayer, but still the only thing you have to remember about grants, depending on what you're using them for, if it's going to be a continuing expense, if you don't get the grant the next year, you end up having to pay for it. I completely understand. And with the trailer proof, they offer us grant services. Correct. Oh, yeah. Okay. I knew there was someone opportunities to supply things that we were going as I think if I'm hearing this the idea that we were going to spend this amount on this we can get a grant we were going to spend it anyway that's supplanting instead of supplementing. You need to be careful of supplemental because that you put something in place you have to be ready to absorb. Those are the ones I'm talking about like you

075know we're going to be putting it maybe I mean it depends on how it goes on this. We're going to be putting 2.8 million aside for capital expenditures. Well, I mean that's a great idea. No, no, no. I It's kind of hand in hand with the budget in a way. Sure. Um I'm just saying that at some point we may not spend that 2.8 because we get to cover that. So that 2.8 kind of rolls over. It's good for planning. I wanted to say this during that discussion but I also wanted to say that I think my goal in terms of like one of the projects that we have not listed there is a I mean the middle school lots we talked about this at the last meeting but if we can go out there

076and get their site facilities grants that the district has to match we have to pay 25% of um if we can get a grant for $200,000 and we have to match 25% of that to get a you a $200,000 project done for that's a heck of a that's a great savings and that's exactly I think again like logic it's you know does offer those those types of services all those in favor I opposed abstensions the now one other thing I want to say on this because it was presented in this normal. We're not looking yet at what's going to be set aside currently and going forward. Well, I will be requesting it as um stakeholder, but I would request going forward that the proposed budget be in the same format as um the final budget

077will be. So like when this goes up on your website, is it going to be in this format or will it be No, the motion said that it be I'm just double check that's not item to proceed. either a motion to approve the shooter of exposure for student discussion. So all those in favorions the eyes have item two. Do I hear a motion to approve the following requests for athletic coaching candates as contracted rates necessary? So move second comments and questions. I'm glad we got one. Yeah. Wasn't that a long search for a long arous process? So thank you to for setting up and showing the program move forward. She did a great job as the women's wrestling coach this year as well. So, I mean, she's obvious she knows her athletics. So, that's great

078that she's setting up for this and it's all in favorions. C is great. Uh EL motion to acknowledge after all employees not to exceed uh 12 weeks to employees. Secondly, all those in favor. Do I hear a motion to approve the following requests for preapproval of courses and programs of study for employee continuing education? Items 1 through six. So move second. Comments, questions? All those in favor? I I opposed abstensions. The eyes have it. I move to G. Do I hear a motion to approve the disposal of the attached, unneeded, surplus, unusable, and or obsolete property from a district that is consuming valuable storage space according to the policy [Music] 706? You try to be really clear. Any comments or questions? Is there nowhere we can donate these novels to? That's quite a lot. We

079uh so we go ahead and have a disposal of surplus property. So once we have everything and we are going to start using should we get nothing we could always we we we could actually make motions to donate. my understanding and I did look at some of these um these are also falling apart which is one yeah but that is one of the reasons why paperback a lot of them are paperback novels that are probably 20 years old would have been used by a lot of seventh graders fifth graders third graders [Music] Well, hard ground book said we'll be like that. Any more questions? All those in favorions have it. Great. Moving on to item 38. Public comment wallet 3. Do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? Second. All those in favorions. The

080meeting is now work. Is the screen switching? Yes. Um, what happens with the app? This is just going to continue for now. Oh, okay. It just runs into the next page. Great. workshop meeting all Mir Mr. Mrs. Terry Zitler present and here no public comments on two education appreciation please. Um it's uh it's that time of year. So let me see. So we want to appreciate uh you know all of our great staff and have national physical education and sports week which was the 1st through the 7th. School principal day May 1st. Are you present soon? Uh, no. No. School lunch hero day May 7. Teacher appreciation day May 6th. School first day May 7th. Uh, early employee appreciation day. It's May 8th. Speech pathologist day 18. So, thank you. assessment calendar. Um this is

081um from the last uh workshop meeting where um it was wanted to know more about the assessments. And so basically this is like a calendar of when they receive assessment information and so the board can know that they will expect to receive that information on that timeline. further. Does anybody have any questions? I just want to make a point in the infancy with put this together. She then just took the lead with it. So I want to thank Mr. for kind of putting them together in a concise manner that everybody can kind of see and understand exactly when things are going to be good and when we should expect results. Yeah. I don't know um if I can say a few things. Can you hear me? I don't think we have questions on it. So,

082um Okay. So, I don't see um it looks like there's a a milling machine that's going to be purchased. Yeah, this is for uh the high school industrial technology program. Um is in budget. Are they replacing one or just replacing one? 1963. No, that was fine. I was just curious. Um, is it are we going to see if we can donate it somewhere or they just take it away from scrap? Uh, we will again I think that's one of those things we would try to put on currently and not put it on somebody keep it alive that long. Of course, things were made to last back then. If we get the same amount of time out of this one, I think you know 12 $12,500. They also made the efforts to like look at other

083school districts that were selling equipment to weren't worth they did make an attempt to warranty of course it's quality. Other questions item gold page this is something again this is uh for prek prek count students again I want to reiterate prek counts but almost entirely not entirely grant funded money in from the state for prek accounts that has to be spent on pre accounts it cannot be spent They just trouble their students curriculum update was the way to speak about this but I'll I'll jump in and they've started reviewing I think they have now looked at reviewed and met with at least three different uh vendors that provide an elementary guidance curriculum. Um, and they'll be doing kind of going through the review uh systematically uh which will also incorporate the use of some highly

084reputable review sources. One thing I'm very big on if you're going back materials. Um, it should not just be us saying, "Oh, we like this." We should have some external external reviews from from reputable uh sites every fantastic website that does this. Um and so that we know it's it's again not just on the whim of one or two administrators but rather thoroughly vetted by the professional community at large. One of the great things is like as this current has been introduced over the last couple of years that we started updating it. Um I have some resources at other schools that happen to use some of them and there was one that everybody was talking about that was had bad reviews and all this stuff in practice the teachers at that school love it and

085matter of fact they brought up students kind of like what we did here. Um so the fact that we have you know an engaged board who would like to you know research the curriculum as well um that's a great thing but to include the teachers the administration and everybody like we have in the process I think that's just the way to go because I think in the past it has been like oh you know this is sketchy oh it's shiny let's buy it I don't think the teachers really included I will I know the elementary center curricul the elementary guidance curriculum was was a topic of discussion. Um we do believe that whatever direction we end up recommending after after the vetting uh we do believe that we will be able to buy with um

086buy materials with grant funding. [Music] analyses on the first three first reading of policies. Please what's generating this suggested update? So this is around uh modes of student transportation. Um and believe it was fairly outdated and maybe in a lot of ways. Um comes changes did not come from PSD. I think they were started by officer Horlac uh with some recommendations about you know just some accountability built in um right now we do not have I don't believe we have parking decks for students um do we do but so we don't have do we have assigned spots no um so there's like just things that you know also this outlines some steps um that you know we we just make sure that it is under our supervision and sort of all right kind of yeah

087this is second reading so we've seen these before and nothing is different from reading correcting any questions on those item C the list update the report is attached but I kind of go over this very very briefly um again was at a conference right now you'll see it it's a summary of the wellness committee the annual meeting was held on March 4th 2025 included administrators, teachers, high school students, board representative and community members as well. Sorry, did I miss? Okay. Um, we completed the trianial assessment and reviewed the wellness the student wellness policy at that meeting. In the trianial assessment, uh, majority of concepts in place were already in place. over several periods of consideration. Uh collaboration between food service provider and nutrition education class projects and activities. Integration of nutrition education to a variety

088of subjects and staff who provide nutrition education and addressing activities throughout the school day. So really efforts to really you know target students and their their their questions from the board. None comment on the policy committee. None. Um this is our annual work with the nutrition group. I really heard no complaints. Um, does anyone have any questions about the receiver? No, I would like to thank Janine and whoever else was Jason for me that last meeting. I just started meeting I don't think there's any complaints about the nutrition. I can say in my short time they've they've been very responsive. They have I have met with representatives several times um courtesy up front but then also as we sort of hit this renewal and they were provided all the information great communication and then from

089what I just heard service for us at this point in time presented to the board. Any questions? This is the room for the facade. We know this has been coming and here it is now. Yeah. My hope is that by the voting meeting we will have a a final uh solicitor's review done and in in in line and ready for approval. Um actually worked on this as recently as just before the meeting this evening. Um, our solicitors didn't get any feedback on the original proposal that you see attached here. So, I've sent that off to the trader group. There'll be some back and forth until you get language exactly where it needs to be on both sides. Um, but forward to kind of getting that done so we can move forward perfect time for do

090the work June or July. It's great. I'm glad you're getting us moving because you know the longer we wait the more damage happens and you know I don't think we can go through another winter because I'm sure you know the water gets in there. So unfortunately it's an expense we have to incur from poor planning from the past comments or questions. Yeah, I I I just have one comment on it. I'm never fond of estimated ranges. I I really like to see not to exceed cost in one of these things or should the cost go over the estimated range. It's based on this specifically. So, I'm I'm just concerned when I see estimated range of 18 to $20,000. Next thing you know, we get a bill for third. Is that part part B of the

091scope? Yes. And that's because that's the design and they won't know until So what we will what we will ask before they do that is once they do the report, which is part A, we can then we can get them to lock down whatever before they start B. Right. Yeah, I agree. Uh that's one of the reasons actually that we if you recall why we are recommending trader is because they actually gave us the most the the most tightened proposal out of all of the different firms. Yes, other questions I can see I think we won't discuss earlier. Just keep in mind that this will be coming up as a voting meeting and then we'll actually be deciding at that time whether or not to agree proposal presentation here. [Music] Okay, I think Fox Rothschild

092um um you know there were some discussions Jason I had here about you know whether or not to renew Rothschild and in December with Jason Kee and I know there were some complaints about child work and uh some other things and uh Jason and I sat down and we talked about you know how does the district work with box travel like how do we connect with them? How do we ask questions? Can we change the process uh of how that that is happening? And as a result, we can see that our bills with Fox Rothchild have dropped down like like January was like $3,600 24 I believe it was in January. We're going to see some lows obviously as we go. I mean there are certain things like this month actually in my weekly update

093I said I do not anticipate next month being this low because there are some things that come up. Um, what I will say is, you know, I am committed to doing as much work as I possibly can upfront to lower the cost once the solicitor is engaged because what I've found in my experience is that um oftent times the back and forth of well can you get me this and get me this can you get me this is actually what approves a whole lot of costs. Um, I'm also one that typically I reach out. I reach out through email. I don't reach out on my phone if I have to. That also makes the process a little more efficient at times. And I changed my process. I only reach out to Jeff. I've you know

094consulted with board and made sure that this is like the expense uh we want to incur. And I think since that change has been made uh you know I haven't heard really people complain and I think things were working out um a lot a lot better. So questions from the board um public comment I'll make a comment. So my my issue was not necessarily getting rid of fox tile. My my request was that you put out an RFP just to see what the other services um would offer. Um, I know several months ago there was some issues within the board with access to the solicitor due to there not being at meetings. And if you go back many years ago, you'll remember and some of you will remember um you actually some people stopped a

095meeting when um the previous solicitor uh attorney Schwab was dismissed and they stated that you couldn't it was it was going to be unprofessional and it un they were unwilling and unable to um go ahead with business without having a solicitor present. yet since then we haven't had a solicitor for president at majority of meetings. Um so I just I think it's nice that all of the work has access to a solicitor and not just the president. Um I'd like to clarify that um we have the same policy going on now that we had last year that access for the solicitor does president. There's nothing wrong with that. It actually saved us a lot of money because emails were going back and forth with the solicitor. The president wasn't aware that certain board members were

096talking to the solicitor. You know, each email cost us money and some people speak in emails like they're speaking in a chat room or one email. emails had the nature of a board member using the solicitor as their personal solicitor and not necessarily as a district interested in question. So nobody was nobody ever requested to have access to the solicitor last year and was turned down not one time. Every time I had requests for the solister, it was a handful that the person who requested was given that access as long as I was copy or the rest of the board was copied so that we knew what was that's not true. I don't want I don't want I'm just saying it seems like you're saying that people were not there in access to the solicitor

097and that is not the case. I understand that but there I remember one particular meeting where a question was asked you were quoting what you thought the solicitor said and then there was a confusion over how you interpreted. Yes. sometimes uh the way lawyers speak and yes I understand you in a confused state which is why I was just saying once a month it would be nice to have him sitting here that's it on to five athletics um we're going to have some candidates um for uh coaching hires Um you have any comments or questions on that? I'll just just comment that again I do have comprehensive evaluations based upon students or students feedback that I do prior to that vote as well. comments. Um, any public comment on our legs? See, we have nothing

098at this time. Any public comment on buildings? None. Seven. Any candidates for employment? Any questions from the board? Um B this is very exciting to me. We have two people on your substitute list that looks super familiar. I'm really glad to see their names there. Um it's fantastic to see any comments or questions for glad to have them around. I didn't want to ask them. Yeah, I didn't want to ask on the retirement day if they were going to do this because I thought maybe a little bit of a shadow there coming back for you to live. Item uh C. Um Jason's writing his job description for the director of school safety and security. Yeah, I just like to take a minute. Um, if you haven't seen if you haven't had a chance to read

099over this, um, I think that this is an incredibly valuable position. Um, I think outsource lab does a fantastic job. I think what we need to do is um get get the realm of safety and security into an expert's perview. Um, I am not that person. Our other administrators are we are academic. We are academically minded. We deal with we deal with students. We deal with working with teachers. We are not in the mind frame of you know best security measures. It's a lot of work for us to do. I mean a lot of work just in that space. Um and we would be talking about a very modest uh increase, but um in terms of salary for this position, but um in terms of what it provides for the district at large, in terms

100of supervision, in terms of planning, in terms of emergency preparedness, um it is, you know, in my mind just a no-brainer to get somebody in place who has that level of expertise and put them in charge of those things. So I'm more than happy to answer any questions that the board may have about this potential position question have two resations each with astounding service here. Any comments or questions from the board? Sorry to see the bill and maybe they'll come back as subsidizing. That's a long time to serve one district and um they deserve they deserve a very thank you and appreciation. Public comment on personel hearing none. Uh section B technology um IU technology needle services we participate in this clean up. So, thank you and I apolog um that Hershey had a conference.

101However, there was items on the agenda technology reunitement that I just wanted to address. Um so, you know what? I'm just going to go one item to another and don't stop me if you have any questions. The first one we have is our tech school council. So that is what um we contract through GIU through consortium to uh get legal expertise and knowledge from students even Williams. In the past they have provided insight on our AI policy as well as the new guidelines that are coming out for accessibility to our website, social media accounts and our learning management systems. We don't have the proposal yet from the IU, but I estimate it to be under $800. In terms of the cost, it all depends how many districts participate. It usually is a good amount of

102the currently high school districts. So, it's right around $600 what the cost usually is. Moving on to Discovery Ed, we are going to see an increase from last year. I'm being honest. almost $2,000, but that is because we are expanding what we are subscribed to and include the history science with the discovery of experience. And so that um will help the elementary level to address the new skill standards that are coming out. So that's why we have an increase there in cost. Overdrive is ebooks, audio books, magazines, and graphic novels. No change in cost from this current school [Music] year. We are decreasing the cost there because we are eliminating the elementary center from the subscription. It's just not a program that's used at that level. So that would be high. So that's going to

103take it from about $6,500 down to as you'll see there about half that cost. Brain pop we are also decreasing because again the separate wasn't fully using it. They have enough programs at their exposure. So they do not need that one. So that's decreasing from about 40 almost $4,600 down to 3,000 just for the middle school. And then class link is going to be a new purchase for us. A pretty substantial one as you'll see there. We're going to go with a three-year cost of just over 32,000 that provides us with single sign on identity and access management, a lot of analytics and then data guard for identity protection. However, we're getting that through the cyber security pilot program that we were awarded. So, out of that 32,000, we pay 10% of that. So, just

104over 3,000. So when you take all of those programs um in mind there, we've had an overall at least for the first four programs decrease in cost of about $4,300. So that more than covers what we need to pay for class link and we have about $1,000 left over. I'll just say I'm familiar with class link. It is a a fantastic tool in a lot of different ways. Single sign on. So our students when they log in to the network, they're logged in all their different accounts automatically. There's no remembering 20 different passwords or anything like that. Um from an administrative perspective, one of the things that is is great about G mentioned the analytics. Um I'm always questionable and this will this will upset some people. I understand that I'm always I always question

105uh subscriptions to websites because some of them are fantastic and they're great and all that stuff. Some of them are not highly val and a lot of times what you'll find in districts is on a whim a teacher says, "Oh, I really like this. Let's get a subscription and they got 100 licenses for their students or or you buy your district license and then maybe that teacher uses it for a while and then maybe they pay away and nobody's using this and we continue to pay year after year. So it's one of those ads that were out like check the usage of all your apps. It's sort of the same concept but on a grander grander level, right? Um, so class lane is fantastic because it will actually analyze how many teachers and how many

106students have used this over the course of whatever parameter label sign you want to put in there. So next year at this time if we look at grandpox usage and we see it was logged into 200 times over the course of the entire year and we pay $4,000 for it. Well, that may have a very different conversation. We weren't using this. So, it can actually um the analytics that are provided can actually lead to some really high savings. Well, that's why it's great to hear Gretchen say that, you know, they're removing some things because they already trapped in the elementary center and wasn't being used. I mean, these are the things we've been looking for for years. I mean, we've been getting them gradually more and more, but I'm excited to see that the progress

107of the district has come to that point that we're seeing in the savings because they know it's not being used. As far as Oh, sorry. Oh, I'll continue my thought. As far as I'm concerned, if we're going to have teachers in schools, let's let them teach. I think having this type of thing as a supplemental tool is not a bad idea, but it should not be replacing teachers in classrooms. Yeah, almost to Mr.'s 's point. I want to make sure that I made it clear of the elementary teachers not having used those programs that were pulling away. It's just, you know, they they had so much else that they have going on in their classrooms and they simply did not have the time for it. So, you know, again, kind of Mr. Ger's point of

108they're doing the instru replacing our enemies. It's just as as mentioned help us to recognize what programs are being used. It also streamlines from the technology standpoint on our account management. when we have a new student, it's like one-stop shop that we can just put the students information into class link and then they are assigned to all of the different programs from Canvas and um blanking all of them to a seesaw. So, you know, to every single platform that they can access to is going to make things go so much quicker from that standpoint that can't be doing what they need or want to be doing with the students. I have a question um like some kind of third um games that the kids can take home and do them at home to learn like

109math skills and English skills because that's what my daughter owners used to use them for. I don't think they were really used in the classroom, but they really used at home instead of playing video games. Yeah, some some certainly are. Um and again I would say that this will actually class will still allow us to understand how many students are still logging into their school district license. So you can do all your partner potentially and we're not saying instruction we want to eliminate those. We just want to make sure that the things we're paying for are being used and used effectively in the best way. See and I'm going to say something even better about our elementary teachers. I haven't had an experience at the middle school or the high school. So, I'm not saying

110anything since then. The elementary teachers when my daughter or my son or anybody have a little bit of learning difficulty, they actually have re on their own time have researched three apps that can be downloaded too because it was something that, you know, either the school didn't have time. So, they've been really good about that. I think elementary teacher teachers are so excited to get those little kids to learn, but they will go out there and research that stuff. And as a parent, I research some things and just make sure that my kids succeed. But, you know, sometimes it's best to come from the teacher. That way, the parent knows it's not kid trying to trick me into playing video game. respond to question. None of nine miscellaneous um item A you have not turned

111in your ballot yet please do that. Um, this is the Bual on that traffic. Do we have an update? Yes. uh not not necessarily significant for us but certainly moving in a direction where we may it I feel a little bit better than I have in the past several months as we haven't had any update. Um looks like so pend was at the burough and it looks like that project is their their project now uh they're in the final stages of going through approval. Um, and what what that means is then we kind of unfold and we become kind of next in line and I actually got some communication uh from from Pendot's lawyer who was working through that project who is also working with our lawyer on trying to move our project in that

112we should be anticipating some help and movement in the in the coming weeks. So that's a better update that I've been able to give. Um and that communication came early last week. Had some followup then uh late last week. So moving in the right direction at least, you know, certainly I'd like to close that loop, but we're not quite there yet. Well, it unfortunately doesn't mean that costs aren't going to go up in the meantime. I wish they would kind of, you know, help us lock that price so that we're not going to be surprised in a couple weeks when that 800,000 becomes one million tariffs or something else. I have an update on this as well. um spoke with you know in a couple emails and then I actually did have a conversation because

113he was at courthouse and couldn't answer an email but uh with with David Comr for a fox trial um and it was the cleanest clearest most succinct conversation I've had around this topic yet he said basically the municipality generally controls the learning he has not seen a school passed their own resolution in conjunction with another entity, the municipality or the county. Um, our choices are our choices to join or not. Um, or ask them to make revisions to their learn agreement if we were to be interested in going that route. Um, and then I do not know the answer to this, but I was also asked if the county has and is participating and I was not. So, our next steps are really, do we want to participate or we're interested with the way it

114stands right now? I think with rotations it can be a benefit to the community as a whole. Um I wonder if it would make sense for us as a board to meet with them as you know representatives of town to maybe come up with have a talk have a chat and right now I mean you're going to take care of all that as well. I I trust your judgment when it comes to that. But I think with some revisions you change the whole town designating the whole town is one of them. Yeah. Um, I don't like the old See, I It goes back to the picking of winners and losers. Like, you know, you're going to take your body over some new business that just popped up. You know, that may be more beneficial to

115the area, but all of a sudden this business because they got their stuff in on time and all that other stuff they did or because they were friends. I'm a little bit afraid of that kind of stuff. Nemesis. don't discount unscrupulous government either. So I personally I'm against it. If the the areas of the agreement that um that attorney Gummer identified to me as being like the most concern would be one, you know, which properties are identified, two, uh a sunset provision, uh and then three, if the property is sold. Those are the three areas that he seems to say would need the most learning for him to be able to recommend that we go forward. Of course, we go forward against the recommendations board will Well, I think those are great areas of concern

116and maybe that's what you start with by asking them if they're willing to budge on any of those. If they're willing to budge on any of those, well, maybe discussion is wanted. If they're not clean on any of those, I can see where and I, you know, Dwayne says he's against it. I can see where I may push to be against it. I still think we should be wasting resources. Jason's got it up on his plate. Well, the fact that he has the information in front of him now, those resources were already spent. So, maybe Jason could have a chat with them and just see where they're going to go. no harm in that you start getting a lawyer involved and you know those are good. Well, unfortunately, you know, over the last couple years,

117we've had different information and you know, the solicitor gives some great information, a very long long email last year and a couple years ago. Um, but to actually have the superintendent speak with the people uh in the burrow, that's something to development in the world, right? I mean, that's that's the heart of it and and and school districts are a good deal more than our taxes. So, in order for to actually be effective and achieve its mission, I'm not not predating whether or not it does achieve the mission, but if the school district doesn't come on board, I think that it's it's it's not very effective, right? And that's kind of the the issue. So like if we don't participate, it's not a super effective thing. So whether or not we decide to participate really

118sort of determines whether there's a really effective active in well there's also the fact that you know missing revenues. Um you know we saw the presentation earlier where the revenues you know we get into the decrease in the mill share and the decrease in the mill there. effective revenues. Now, how many people can get alerted in a year and how much of that builds up over time? I know you start off with a certain percentage of tax break, then the next year it's less and and it moves on. Oh, it's my understanding they don't necessarily get a tax break from the tax break for the Yeah, they do not get the original assessment. the original assessment of the property is is we still receive 100% of that tax cost. It's it's the new assessed additional

119value that gets the tax break. And typically speaking, there's either five or 10 year agreement. So it either goes from 10 years to Yes. So it's it goes from 90 to 100 every every year from some of it. That changes a lot of how I understood it to work. Now, I guess I never asked the right question. Thank you. Like the boulevard income is worth like 10 times what it's worth. Yeah. They don't get any taxes. They just keep paying the same taxes they're paying now. And then in 10 years it steps up to meet the value that it should then I somehow missed that in all of the presentations and discussions that we had. Dave said it here like there's nothing I think I wasn't here was here. Yes, I'm sorry. Um always speak

120I know so I I can probably speak to it the best. Um so what they're saying is correct. So, if your if your property's assessed at 100,000 and you do another 100,000 in improvements, you're still paying the first 100,000. Second year, you're going to pay 110. Next year, you're going to pay 120, you're going to pay 130. So, you get up to that 200,000. That's the easiest way to put it. You don't lose anything. We're just the the people who are doing the renovations are just slowly building up to us. I totally completely understand but and I'm sorry that somehow I missed that. I mean I got million things going on but you're concerned about how it gets awarded. I do have concerns about that. We could look into that. We can ask the bureau

121to change you know their process their application process and we thought it unbiased. I think they need to find a way to make it unbiased. you don't have this operates. So our our zoning officer is the one that's making the decisions. He doesn't live here. He doesn't he's not even we contract for various asset associates. So they're the ones that are going to be accepting the applications and and processing it. Um and the change of um sale is in the ordinance. Well, I think those other concerns that our attorney has spoken about probably shouldn't be asked and probably should be addressed. You know, maybe modifying a little way or however it could help, but I've come a little closer to it because I just I did just pass the burrow's ordinance on to our solicitor.

122Literally, I got it this morning. The one that was actually passed and signed that is now our solicitor's. So again, we're working this process. I plan to get over we'll know a little bit more. I know. All right. So, right now I'm waiting on a response and systematically working through what our solicitors uh recommendations were for going through this. Um the first step is really getting clear guidance on our insurance carriers provisions. So the the first question we would have to answer is would we be covered for these activities under our current policies or is there new underwriting that needs to occur? I don't have an answer yet. Um although there has been some there have been communications between myself and our insurance broker and he asked some follow-up questions, some clarifying questions like would

123we participate here? would participate, you know, would we be hosting events? Um, I know that there were some uh, you know, information that I think what's what, um, is interesting, Gary, is some of the questions and I know there you have some questions. Um, and in reviewing those because I don't have an answer to all of them yet. I do believe that if I if I went through Jeff's um kind of guidance on this, those would begin to unfold answers all along the way. There is a process with a lot of work to go through because I got all these questions when I went online to the actual official club and I looked at all their steps. Yes. All their battle questions. Yeah. So I I I think in terms of would there would we

124ever provide transportation the answer to that is that you know we can write it as such that we do not and that would probably be a recommendation that all transportation is provided by families and that there is never any storage or anywhere around school property some schools do in terms of like rifle and things of that nature. What what the way I'm processing this right now is that we would not have to be basically endorsed by us and we would probably pay a coach and that would be the last of our involvement and let them use the uh the yes basically allow use high school as their and I I think that's perfectly smart not to store on campus. I don't think anybody would like to have that happen. So there are also some policy

125recommendations as we go through like we would have address some small things like making sure that we don't buy a policy that you know we don't that it doesn't come on here. We would never host an event. I don't know where I would try to list them anyway, but why not? Yeah. Um, and then talk about waiverss and things of that nature, but I can't really move into the next step until I have concrete answers from our insurance broker, but I would anticipate those by the end. So, would we pay for the uniforms? I that would be up to the board at a later date. Who's going to pay for the rental of the club itself? Not the with whatever club they go to to have their competition. That's a that's a great question. I

126think that again the board does not is not just bying this doesn't say that they have something for all this though. Um I know that they have some significant donors lined up. Um, so really again the board could because those aren't regional or state competitions, they're local competitions. So there's no expectation that that the board would be committed to funding. Of course, the board could have those conversations and decide what they want to do. Um, but upfront the the commitment they're the commitment this group is asking for actually says you don't need to give a dime for anything. They're even offering to volunteer to donations. Oh, there's no lead for the not there and maybe some other clubs from other areas to come in and give a presentation so maybe we'll get a better understanding.

127Absolutely. I'm for it no matter what, but I think some of us need a better understanding. I think, you know, I' I've been reached out to by numerous members of the public telling me how they're excited about this for their kids. something for their kids to do than walk around town. And I think I will arrange I will arrange for maybe board meeting for somebody to come in if that if that would be great. I think every some of the questions could be answered by the people involved and I think they'd be excited to present what they have. And are they going to put this in writing? Because I don't think my thing is we had a club before that said it's not going to cost us anything and then it cost us nothing. And

128I think I said something before that of course down the road it could cost us something because if they become an official club, you know, they could ask us for the amount that we could donate to them and we could always vote it down if we voted. Yes. I mean, it's it's we have discretion on whether it's going to cost us more. Yeah. as far as funding in the future putting it in writing. I'm not sure you know that ultimately the board allocates. So if the board at large decided to fund something then there could be money going to it. If the board decided not to this group may never come to you and ask for anything but I'm not saying at this time they're not asking for anything. Not at this time not and

129you have to look at it. did say something that there are groups that are willing to fund this. Um, I know it's a big sport. It's huge. I work right down the road from Lehigh Valley Sporting Place. I've been to many events, boy scout events, uh, held tri events when they have them there. And, you know, they're well attended, welld sporting plays, he donates a lot to the community, and he's probably one of the donors that are lined up to help this club get established. I mean, I think I've said this before, it's a great way for the kids to learn safe usage of guns and productive usage. Um, you know, it's it's fun because the each range and it comes out a different way and everybody laughs and shoots. Academicism isn't everything in education.

130Sportsmanship is another educational tool. We should be encouraging this joy in US sports. There's lots of but there's a lot of kids that aren't capable of playing football or they aren't coordinated enough to play in other sports. But there's a very specific skill for hand eye coordination when you start learning how to shoot weapons or bow and arrow. My one daughter is so proficient in bow and arrow she could be William Pell. All right, questions. Moving on. Some items here. So, item uh had a parent in the district made the suggestion, why don't we have a future farmers of America club at the district? And I said that put it on the agenda. I mean this is a agriculture area and um see what the board thinks about it and if you think it's a

131good idea then maybe we can have administration engage if there's interested students like enough interest to make some I think it's a great idea I think um that it would be very popular uh when we did the middle school tour that one teacher in the I'm sorry. Yes, she has a great setup down there and I think that is like dovetail into a future farmers of America thing because I they're growing things, they're they're breeding fish, they're doing all sorts of things that are are agriculture type and I really think that this area I think that it would gather a lot of support. I see no reason why we wouldn't have it. So it's obviously something we can explore now that we've added agricultural edet program. However, I will denote that any club that has

132an advisor is also a paid colle. So any club that's formed needs to have advisors and cost. Correct. I'm just out there. I think the teacher that's the head I think he'd be so excited if that came about he might even volunteer. I would probably But he would definitely see that. He's just so excited to have all of that and he's trying to revive that here at the school. I you know my my last district was where I'm coming from. Uh huge FFA district. Um it is a fantastic program. Um you know the students that get connected to that and I'll go I'll go back to any club extracurricular activities. Um, and something Mr. Deler said kind of has just whether whether you you know put put some philosophies inside right now. Anytime you can

133get a kid um involved and connected to something largely to themselves um and they just feel like they belong uh in a productive social environment, that is a win. And if you're getting 10 kids, I would argue to the board that it's well worth the club site that decision. Yeah, I'm reading it right now on the Pennsylvania team. Um to be an active FFA member, you must be enrolled in agriculture. So just fits our needs. I'm just putting I just want to say there is actually a lot of scholarships for a second, right? And they're like when I went to college the first time, they were like $10,000 a year scholarships, right? FHA, FFA who because I got a $10,000 a year scholarship. So, I feel, you know, it could be much more now. I

134also think that there's room for um you know, sponsorships and such. I mean, we have a lot of tree farms around here. We have other family farms around here. aren't sure they'd love to spark interest in farms of America. There's actually a pre-apprenticeship program in agriculture as well through the state of Pennsylvania which is basically a workbased learning environment. Um that is for a student who wants to actually explore that professionally. Um a fantastic opportunity. There's um you know we have one of the best agriculture studies uh in the country at Penn State not too far from here. Whether they're under work force program like that is something that there are certainly ways that we can expand [Music] off to move forward and studies and see what is another thing that kind of keeps popping

135up. So I think um specifically you know I I noticed uh in the last week that my pleasant valley was their board meeting was getting live stream by the time news and I remember that once upon a time we used to get live streamed by the news and I know a lot of community members watched it there and I wanted to ask the board if we want to officially like like have decent I think he has the time he has to say like we are officially asking you to go live stream the meetings. Um I think a lot of community members waited there but that's my opinion. So I'm not going to say anything I I don't think it's a good idea. I think okay sometimes it breeds a lot more hostility than what we

136say. I have to you know you know me. Come on. I know. Okay. So you're not in favor. I'm not in favor. I mean, if it happens, it happens. Sure. You know, I mean, the hostility is out there anyway. So, maybe if they have a way to vent their hostility in public, they they might stop just targeting me. I think getting information to the public is a good idea no matter how it gets to them. But once again, I always have concerns over those keyboard warriors who are unbelievably brave when they're sitting in mommy's basement compared to sitting here in the audience. No comments last year. Some of them were sitting here in the audience. Yeah. Well, I don't think we've gotten the majority there, so I think we'll just abandon that one. Um, this

137one's going to be a reminder that um probably some type of negotiations are going to begin with the uh the new contract and we're planning to assemble an ad hoc negotiations committee. Um, in the past we had two or three board members that participated and I'm asking for uh volunteers. You don't have to volunteer here now. I'm just putting it out there so you can think about it. Um, and it will definitely come up again uh in weeks. I I would just like to add that it's not only the uh professional uh faculty association it's also a year of simple they both expire in end of June 2026 so we'll be under two contract negotiations great moving on to item I this came out of um discussion um that I overheard this deal with her

138um having a former uh student and um this has to do with CCPI and how our students have mine to um like a whole day at the vote tech and the question asked was we had students go back to doing a half day at the vote t is it possible that we could have more students attend the vote pack because right Now there's more students who are interested and can get in there. I mean you right in ninth grade and now kids are having to wait until 10th grade to get in. My son was accepted. Oh, okay. 10 nth graders and students apply and each day said 10 nth graders are 10 nth graders. Okay. So, I just wanted to bring up the topic and we wanted to talk about having a conversation with the

139OTA and seeing if we could restructure things and try to increase the number of students that are able to get accepted. Well, I I'll stick my two cents in because it was basically a conversation that was initiated between me and and a former student that has since graduated. And I think that you brought out I asked that question. I think it's a great idea. Half a day here, half the day at the boat deck, we can set the number of kids. I think that's a great idea. But I'm going to tell you flat out, the kids aren't going to go for it unless we have very strict guidelines so that the techers aren't picked on by the college preps. They told me that flat out and I agree. I can see it happening. I think

140they should be there full time. They're learning a skill. They get tested on and outdoors. They get lean in. They get their certificates. If they don't pass the Keystone exams here, they don't graduate. If they're not um books smart, some kids aren't books smart. Let's just face it, some kids are, some aren't. Some are hands on kids and that's what they're going to do for the rest of their life. And this gives them a great opportunity to hone in on their skills. They come out of of um CCTI, they get jobs. And I can say that because we hire kids from CCTI, right? Out of CCTI, they come work for us, right? So to have more kids have access to that, but then it takes away from the kids who really want to do it.

141I mean, they like some of these kids should just live, breathe, sleep, eat, see. I I think if we're going to have the conversation around this, we have to approach from a couple of different angles. First of all, I want to say I am a huge proponent of vocational education. Um, first of all, the question of access is a really important one and wondering I think we it would be helpful if the board had a complete understanding of the selection process and admissions process and I'm not saying that there's anything that's new at CCDI. I truly don't know like how many students are applying how many turn now because my concern to your employment factor is there may be students who really want to go there and turn away there's kids there that wanted to

142go for specific things and guess what they didn't get to do that yeah you know my daughters wanted to go for um welding yes I did they didn't get welding they got carpentry but they still got skill yeah So I think that access question is a really important one for more information on um and then you know options too. I you know do do we do we feel as if we would advocate for AM or PM option or amm like is there something is there something wrong with having that level of choice again for students? Um, I'm always I'm always going to fall inside kids. Like that's just like I'm just playing the devil's advocate. They run their schools completely different than the way I mean just the way they have um the fifth days.

143We don't really use them here. So there's a lot of them when they're not in school and the night's in school or the night has a pack baby whatever day pack baby day and they have school. So I mean I think it's because the way it is one of the major reasons for the drops in many of the carbon schools is is the schedule. So I just think like so we just need to look at some of the reasons why um they do an AP schedule day meaning one day is timeable one day is academic which if you're a halftime part-time student which just it requires a lot of finling schedules and academics and carry credit which students are taking keystone exams where they're getting those quarter courses where they're not are we doing credits

144are wavering they're not meeting there's a whole lot of little things that need to be understood or the goal is to try to create more opportunities for students and to start a conversation and see if if you know if if more opportunities can be created. I mean that's that's the real point. I mean, not that a really cool setup. It's to to help that kid who didn't make that kid who was, you know, didn't make it in n similar discussions. I understand. But um I think I think I don't remember that was completely different. I understand. I just we have nothing to do with their social how that works. I understand the students just, you know, they're planning to go into locations and they want to be productive immediately. They want to start a career

145when they graduate. And I I would like to see more students have I just read an article that kids are making 60,000 right out of high school. Well, $60,000 in That's insane. That's why I don't understand, like I said, we've had the similar discussion before, not on the half day, school day thing, but we haven't had discussions about bringing more of that back here. Starting in the middle school. I mean, we even had that discussion with Steve that are going to be touring that back. So, why our kids can't get into that school? Why not due to the beginning of the year allow some of our kids to learn without having to back up? Yeah. I mean, I thought we had to believe that that was the direction we were going ahead in a few

146years ago before everything got all Yeah. twisted turning. Um, I'd like to have a conversation with CCP. I mean, they have a fun balance. Are they planning to do an addition? I mean, what's holding them back from expanding to be able to accomodate those students? I'm not sure. They need an um carpentry assistant or something like that. Yeah, the vocational vocational teaching positions aren't very challeng, I mean, you know, as a teacher. I don't know how much I'm just It's definitely a challenge. It's crazy. So, the next step you're going to add to the understand? Yes. And as far as the A and B days go, um I think now don't quote me because my kids are at two different levels. Um they do I think the nine and 10 are like on a certain

147day in the low technical area and then on like say a day and then um B day is their classroom days and then on like the older kids their A day would be classroom days and then their B days would be in the technical area. So that's how I think that they do that. They try to keep them separated because they're at a different learning level. You don't want to bring the ones that are up here down. All right. Okay. So, I just wanted to acknowledge uh Jason, you had provided reference or something for the educational app. uh for principal for the principal day and then um we arranged for staff appreciation day for sax and committee and all the buildings for leaders and staff members. Thank you for doing that. Yeah, I'm sorry. I

148know I didn't get a lot of paper, but I thought it was going to be mentioned and I just wanted to backtrack to the traffic light. Just a little food for thought. If you remember when South Ninth Street Bridge construction happened, there was a lot of backup in the traffic, delays in the buses and things like that. So, it's just something to keep in mind when the traffic light does happen because and I don't know if all of you know the extent of the PEDOT project. While we're excited PEDOT's keeping their their operations here in the height, they're going to be demolishing their buildings, rebuilding all of their buildings on site. you're going to have construction entrances. And my first question was, how long is this going to take? The answer was 33 months. So

149for 33 months, we're going to have construction at that intersection. So when you throw in the traffic light, you know, putting that up and everything, it we're going to have to figure out all the logistics in the town of traffic control. Ideally, the traffic light should be the first thing installed. The traffic light should have been installed. That that was supposed to happen when my son was entering fifth grade and he's going to be a senior. So if if we get the go ahead, we'll start on it tomorrow. But our plan is stuck in our concern is that they both happen simultaneously. And what is that going to do to that intersection? Especially with students, you know, in and out. We don't want to see and they're gonna they're gonna offer traffic. There was a

150light there to help control traffic. But 33 months is gonna be a long time. See, it would have been great if the burrow said, "Well, we can start if you allow the district to get this. They'll probably turn off. We tried that. We actually turn off during construction." So, why don't we just pay the guy to sit there and go like this? But on a state project, the bureau has no control over inspections. They have their own state labor industry inspectors that inspect their buildings. So unfortunately the furls pulled out a lot at that section too. There is their part in favor.